Contact
by dozy-joe-2000
Summary: Warhammer 40K fic. The 43rd Tuhravian Infantry are an Imperial Guard Regiment renowned for their cityfighting, but they face a new challenge when they are thrown into a jungle war with a few Catachan scouts to help them. Reviews please! Rated for language


**CONTACT**

Part One – The Living Jungle 

_Chapter One - Contact_

Around them, the jungle was a living creature, malevolent and deadly, through which their guide, a tanned Catachan recruit, led them. He identified dangerous plants, and though they were not upon his native world, he was privy to such junglecraft that he could spot them a hundred feet away. Corvul had asked him about it one night, as the platoon camped. They had found a clearing relatively devoid of poisonous predators with sharp teeth, and clear of some of the larger carnivorous plants. Around a campfire, the soft orange glow warm on their faces, the cold metal of their lasguns never far from their hands, he had sat beside the youth; he wore the jungle greens customary in the Catachan regiments, and his alert, watchful eyes darted amongst the shadows in the dense trees that surrounded the muddy clearing, the colourful fauna and flora that were bedded around the trunks of the powerful trees belying the potential terrors beneath. Around them, fat mosquito-like insects clustered on airy wings. There were intermittent clapping sounds as the soldiers slapped at them. The Catachan had replied that he could read their behaviour, like body language – you could _feel _their malevolence. The jungle lived and breathed, and like other beings they had tells. The same went for the animals, the insects, every aspect of the ecosystem.

Corvul hadn't asked again – not pragmatic enough for him. He liked what he could see, feel, hear – not abstracts. He'd leave that for the Catachan to worry about.

Now he and the first squad, ten men all told, crouched amongst the heavy trunks of a clutch of more powerful trees, their tangled roots providing good cover. They had, before their drop, painted their grey flak-jackets and webbing camo-green, and changed out their grey fatigues for murky green. They were urban fighters, the 43rd Tuhravian Infantry, assigned to a mission far beyond their training. Corvul would never understand why their unit was on this jungle-world, with only a few Catachan scouts to provide jungle-knowledge, but there they were.

The jungle-birds screamed, and the soldiers slapped at the clouds of insects. Corvul half-lay against the damp bark of the mighty tree beside him, its rough bark sticking to his BDUs. His lasgun was held tightly across his chest, and his eyes wandered around the surrounding jungle. The foliage and the great boughs of the trees shifted, their leaves rustled. Every sense was occupied by the teeming life of the wondrous world. Corvul had to admit, it was beautiful; but his soldier's sense of danger screamed every waking moment.

He looked up at the great strong branches, all interlaced and hanging with huge, wet leaves, bright green, and rough enough to take off your skin if you touched them. Beauty and pain, interlaced. _Like gakking marriage_. He rubbed the back of a bare hand across his face beneath his bulky tactical helmet, wiping the dripping sweat from his careworn face, the humidity chokingly heavy, oppressive, every trooper's fatigues soaked with sweat. This particular tree bore fruit, swollen and round and the size of a beach ball. Attached to the huge fruits were writhing colonies of leech-like larvae, all clinging together, their tiny brown bodies glistening. The very ground around them moved with teeming insect life.

His eyes were drawn to an incredible creature, the first he'd seen – they were generally wily and avoided the soldiers like the plague. It had the quiet, unassuming demeanour of something that would turn out to be unexpectedly dangerous. It was dark-furred, and had many arms, and was vaguely simian. It stared at him long and hard, and then disappeared back into the undergrowth in a distinctly suspicious manner. Corvul wished the Catachan scout would hurry up.

He focussed his attention underneath the overlying buzzing of the insects and the lively ambient noise of the jungle, on the voices of the men behind him. The muttered snatches of conversation, the grumbling of men awoken early after a fortnight of easy-street aboard the troopship. They had dropped from the _Imperial Wrath _three standard days before in a bulky cuboid troop lander, one of many the ship had disgorged. Theirs had not been going to the LZ they had been briefed on. Instead of landing with the rest of the Imperial forces, they had been one of several companies randomly selected to go on 'picket' out in the planet's wilderness. Chaos was rife upon the death-world. Their Company, Company C of the second battalion, comprising two hundred soldiers and their command group, had been dropped atop a hill where the jungle was sparse, and in the tall grass had been instructed to dig and fortify a permanent position – Firebase Four. From there, they would patrol, and locate the forces fighting guerrilla actions against encroaching Imperials. It was believed that the indigenous guerrillas were awaiting main-force Chaos reinforcements. But Corvul wouldn't know about that. He just did what he was told.

The men were restless in the humidity. They shifted, they got careless, and they became less alert. He hated the waiting, as did any soldier, but their climate and treacherous terrain only made it worse.

"Sarge?" the voice was monotone and bland, a trait of the southern continent of Tuhrav, who expressed emotions more with their eyes and features than most. Corvul leaned his back against the thick tree root, leaning his rifle against the tree. He adjusted his webbing where it had caught on the root. The roots of the trees were what kept the hummock of packed earth upon which they waited together, and their roots intertangled making a rough natural defensive barrier low to the ground, all around them, with perhaps a metre square of space in the middle – cramped, but defensible. A good position. The man who spoke, a Melean from the southern hemisphere of Tuhrav, was on the opposite side, his rifle across his knees where he sat almost casually. His skin was pallid and waxen, his eyes unusually bright, and clear blue. His hair was wispy and blonde. He scratched a sunken cheek with a thin hand. His frame was lithe, but powerful – his wiry strength made him the most potent bare-knuckle boxer in the regiment, and his unflappable nature made him a useful second in a fight.

"What is it Boorn?" Corvul answered, his voice deep, and his tone as laconic as it ever was, come rain or shine. As he spoke, the short scar that curled from the right corner of his mouth to his cheek, thin and white, twisted into its customary knot. There followed a heartbeat of silence, while Boorn reached into his top-right shirt pocket beneath his flak jacket and removed a cardboard packet, from which he took a short white Iho-stick. He lit it, and took a drag.

"Last I checked, we're a city-fighting unit. What are we doing out here?" he asked finally. Corvul flinched. He had been expecting this question, and he felt annoyance begin to boil in his chest. He got told the same as they got told, and yet every time they asked him. He checked the anger – it was a soldier's job to gripe.

"Boorn, do I have some chevrons that I'm yet to be informed of? We were close by. You're the Emperor's soldier. Fight the Emperor's battles and like it, got me?" Boorn knew better than to challenge Corvul's authority, and so looked away with a shrug of his narrow shoulders.

"Yessir." he mumbled, and turned back to cover his sector.

A hush descended, broken up here and there by muttered conversations among the troops. All griping, of course, about the heat, the damp, the smell…for there was a strange odour that pervaded the air around them, not unpleasant; just the collected smells of the jungle.

The minutes passed like hours, and Corvul's mind continued to wander. He wished vaguely that they were back aboard ship. He scanned the trees, nothing changing, until…

_Motion_.

A figure, in the distance, standing amongst distant trees, half obscured behind one of the carnivorous plants, like an enormous fly trap. Its yellow ivory teeth quivered expectantly, though strangely they did not attack the figure. It was male, he thought, though its face was obscured by camo-paint. Its head was shaved, and it was broad-shouldered and lean. It was garbed in murky green and brown, and wore similar equipment to Guard-issue, though noticeably older. He carried a short-pattern auto-gun, the hard-round firing assault rifle hanging low on a hide strap. The man had one hand draped across its barrel.

He turned to the men behind him.

"Contact." He whispered, and that got there attention. They turned to him, their faces neutral. He raised a finger to his lips in a 'hush' gesture, and then with a series of further gestures related an approximate distance of a hundred metres, and the contact's direction. He found the figure had been joined by two more. Their weapons did not appear to be standardised, as one carried a lasgun, the other a similar rifle to the first. This one had a missile tube slung over his left shoulder.

Three, he mimed to the other soldiers, who nodded.

"Contact!" muttered Boorn suddenly, peering in the opposite direction. There was a moment of trepidation as the squad waited for details, and then Boorn sighed with relief. "Friendly. The guide is back."

Good news. That meant they could get out of here. They weren't here to engage, but to reconnoitre, and one squad was not a good-sized force with which to launch any kind of attack on enemy forces. The guerrillas had a reputation for being gakking everywhere when it suited them, able to move quickly and stealthily through the jungle like nobody else except maybe the Catachan Jungle Fighters.

The guide moved without a sound, slithering through the jungle terrain, and was soon with them, beads of sweat on his brow, his face and bare arms streaked with dirt. He clutched his own wire-stocked lasgun in both hands, and his alert eyes fixed on Corvul, who detected a hint of something in his stare that he didn't expect – some small measure of alarm.

"What is it, Valdak?" Corvul stumbled a little on his name, mispronouncing it, but the Catachan either didn't notice or didn't care.

"We are close to many, many guerrillas. More men than we have here." His voice was an urgent whisper, his eyes scanning in all directions as though he couldn't focus on you even if he wanted to.

"More than ten?" Corvul asked, confused. _Doesn't seem that many_. The scout shook his head, and for the first time looked straight into Corvul's eyes.

"More than we have at base camp. Perhaps five hundred enemy soldiers, moving in force, and doing it very quietly. It took me a while to locate them. I had to kill a sentry with my knife, down by a stream, perhaps a click that way." He gestured behind him. "They will find him soon, and then they will know we are here. We should withdraw, soon as we can."

Corvul nodded appreciatively. "Good advice. But they've got flankers out. There are three of them that we've seen, skulking around. We'll have to take the long way around." Valdak nodded, and hefted his rifle.

"Five hundred?" muttered another of first squad, sat next to a pair of trees that had somehow knotted together, and now leaned slightly apart in a v-shape. His rifle rested in the crux of the v, as did the rifle of the soldier next to him. Dax and Verone were rarely seen apart. Dax was the one that spoke, as per always.

"Yes, five hundred Dax, problem?" Corvul nodded, challenging him to bitch. He didn't, but Mairas, the squad's only female, spoke up instead.

"Yeah," she said, her tone light, "Five gakking hundred of them."

A couple of the lads laughed, and Corvul cracked a smirk himself. Then it was action time. Even the jungle seemed to hold its breath. "Alright, guys, fire team A lead off, B will be thirty seconds behind. No shooting unless shot at. Head magnetic north a click and a half or so until we're out of the danger zone, then hook east and if we don't meet up somewhere before them, we'll rendezvous at Firebase Four."

The men nodded their understanding. Each squad was split into two five-man fire teams. The first, fire team A, comprised the squad leader, in this case Corvul, and four others, in this case Dax, Verone, Mairas and a recent replacement, as yet untested in battle. He too was a Melean, just like Boorn, who had taken the boy under his wing. His name was Trajk. Team B comprised the assistant squad leader, Corporal Boorn, and four others, namely Berall, Dullem, Talino, and Luso.

Corvul gathered the first fire team around him, and looked briefly around to see if he could still see the detachment of guerrillas. His stomach lurched when he realised he couldn't.

"Valdak, you've got point. Sorry, but the God-Emperor hates the scouts." Corvul whispered, with half a grin. Valdak grinned back, an uncharacteristic expression.

"He truly does, Sergeant Corvul, he truly does. Stay close, though, I move fast."

"Don't we know it."

They moved out fast, staying low, just as planned. Hunkered down, they flitted through the trees. Tuhravian troopers knew well how to move silently and well in a city-fight scenario, but in the jungle they were noisy and clumsy, at least in comparison to Valdak the scout. Boorn could hear fire team A up ahead, and felt certain that experienced guerrillas would pick up on the admittedly small telling sounds and anomalies with great ease and would move to intercept and ambush them. The tall, wiry Corporal would be amazed if they pulled off this retreat.

The stream that Valdak had mentioned apparently hooked around this way, because as they moved the sound of running water came to them, and splashing boots, he presumed that they were the boots of Corvul and his boys. He was a solid soldier, and Boorn would have followed him anywhere – he had a way of keeping the squad together and level-headed that commanded definite respect – but he knew, as would Corvul, that this kind of evasion was beyond them in the jungle against jungle trained – no, jungle _bred _opponents. There was a noise to his right. He looked up, whipped his lasgun around, the moulded metal stock tight into his shoulder. He trained it on a figure emerging hurriedly from the trees, muscling through several sleek, reaching creeper plants that already had several furry rodent-like animals ensnared in their faintly pulsating tendrils. It was the Catachan, and Boorn put up his weapon.

"Jesus, Catachan, you spooked the hell out of me." He muttered, but Valdak wasn't listening.

"A are still moving. I was checking our perimeter, and I saw…_down_!" the Catachan shoved him, hard, and snapped his rifle up to the shoulder. He fired a single, white-hot lasround, the snap-whine of the lasrifle distinct amongst the other jungle noises. A smattering of birds, black-billed and orange-beaked, ruffled from the canopy above and disappeared into the clear blue sky. It startled several of the others, Berall and Talino half-raising their rifles in response, but then they saw the body of the guerrilla collapse, taking thick lengths of creeper and rustling shrubs and bushes, a dozen metres deeper into the forest.

Boorn grasped a proffered hand and was hauled up. He looked at Valdak, whose face was solemn.

"Thanks." He said simply. The Catachan nodded.

"Behind us!" called a resolute voice from the rear. Boorn looked and saw Luso, dark-skinned and grim-faced, crouched next to a tree, behind a thick gnarled loop of root. He raised his rifle to his shoulder and took aim back the way they had come, the packed trees making his target indistinguishable. Somewhere, there was a rattle of autofire, and hard rounds blew chunks of bark and dirt from the tree-trunk next to Luso's head. He was showered with damp wood chips, and he flinched away from the bullet impacts.

"Bastards!" he yelled and fired three times, bright bars of light cracking off into the jungle. More enemy fire, a smattering of hard-slug and lasfire. The surrounding foliage and the bark of the trees was chewed up by it, filling the air with flying splinters.

"Damn!" shouted Boorn as the jungle erupted into chaos around him. He saw Talino and Dullem taking up firing positions in amongst the fauna. "No!" he called, and they turned to look at him, puzzled. "Keep moving! We can't get bogged down here!"

"Left side!" Called Berall, out of Boorn's view. Boorn grabbed Dullem by the shoulder, who was closest. He heard Berall fire a couple of rounds, and could envision the firefight that would get them all killed.

"Keep gakking moving!" he yelled, hauling Dullem back bodily from his position.

"You heard the Corporal, move!" called Luso, grabbing Talino and doing the same. Soon, the six men were moving raggedly back, the enemy in pursuit. The jungle was suddenly alive, and the break in the tension made Boorn feel like laughing his arse off. He looked back from his spot in the middle, could vaguely see fast-moving shapes moving from tree to tree, but Valdak wouldn't steer them wrong. Of that he was certain.

_We have to move faster_. Of that he was certain, too.

Corvul heard the gunfire and his blood ran cold. Valdak had said the enemy were close, but he hadn't registered just how close they were. He tightened his grip on his lasrifle and steeled himself for a dangerous retreat.

"Sarge!" Mairas called. She had the squad longlas, and was scanning the trees with her scope. "Movement!"

"Over here too!" Trajk added not a second later, his voice wavering a little. They were on the right and left flanks respectively, five metres off into the tree either side. The stream babbled over its pebbled bed, rushing between the steep muddy banks. It was so paradoxical – something so life-inducing on a planet given the designation 'Death-World'. Dax waited next to it, watching the stream.

_Looks like Junior's going to get a little field training_. "Okay, everyone, we're moving. We'll draw them away with us so they don't cut off B-team. Fire on 'em, keep them nervous."

"Yes sir!" answered Trajk, nervous.

"Love too, Sarge." came Mairas's cockier reply. Verone was crouched next to Corvul, and now Corvul grabbed him by his webbing and pulled him closer.

"Get up on the left with Trajk. Keep an eye on him, give him a bit of encouragement." He muttered so the boy wouldn't hear. Verone nodded and clapped Corvul on the shoulder, and then darted over to the boy. Mairas's longlas cracked, and there was a scream somewhere distant. A second later, Trajk and Verone started to fire off isolated potshots at a hidden enemy.

"Dax, how's the back?" he asked meaningfully. Dax looked at him, and Corvul could tell by the look in his dark eyes that he knew what his Sergeant meant.

"The firing is coming quickly this way, and I can see the impacts. B are still running."

"Good. Get up here." Dax moved to meet him. "People, we're moving. Let's go!"

Corvul moved quickly. Now and then, Dax, who was still running behind the rest, would stand against a tree and lift his rifle, firing a few las-shots at unseen enemies. Corvul didn't know if he was hitting anything. Dax was a Nordcan, from the polar caps of Tuhrav. He was hardier stock than many of them, short and stocky and powerful, used to survival against the will of the elements, but as a direct result of his heritage he was having an even harder time in the heat than the rest of them. He could see that it was visually wearing at the man. He knew he could take it, but he didn't know how long it would be before it started affecting his health adversely. Disease was already passing through the regiment, a great grisly spectre waiting to sap their strength, but somehow Dax had always seemed invincible; or such was the mystique which surrounded the Northerners or Nordcans of his homeworld, surviving where they did, and fighting off the packs of polar beasts, their hate-filled eyes and bloody maws hungering for the flesh of his people.

Romanticised, perhaps, but it would be a blow to morale if anything were to ever happen to Dax. Fortunately, he was a fixture; from the first moment Corvul had met him, he had survived things that would have stopped a lesser man in his tracks, looked into the twisted heart of Chaos and stared it down. He called it a natural courage; Verone, the man's closest friend in the regiment, called it 'having balls like the skulls of Orks'.

Corvul was in the lead, paving the way, dodging through the jungle, down into potholes and depressions, up through crags of rock unseen amongst the enshrouding ground foliage of bushes and shrubs and dead leaves and colourful blooms, finding the path of least resistance. His soldier's sense, though dulled in his unfamiliar surroundings, was not totally gone. A flicker of movement caught his attention ahead, disturbing a tree that actively recoiled from something, it's willowy, rubbery branches contracting, folding away and shuddering as if in fear, shying from something passing close to it. A guerrilla, draped in olive-drab camouflage and carrying a bolter, was crouched, the weapon straightened at him. He levelled his lasgun, and then threw himself flat as he was too slow to counter. The bolter belched at him, and the huge round tore overhead so close he felt the slipstream in the shoulder of his fatigues. It buried itself in a tree trunk and detonated, blasting a plume of splinters sideways. From his uncomfortable position on the ground, he took aim and fired, twice. The lasrounds drilled into the figure's torso, centre-mass, and he stood stock-still for a moment, straightening up and stiffening, his eyes wide, mouth contorting. Then he disappeared back into the mass of the jungle-floor.

More shapes. The guerrillas really knew how to move.

A hand grasped him and he was assisted to his feet. He looked to see who – it was Mairas.

"Sarge, lying down on the job at a time like this!" she quipped, and before he could respond, dashed past him into the natural cover again to keep fighting. Corvul followed her.

"Keep moving!" he called, unsure as to who could hear him – the fire team had become strung out, five little firefights.

"Gakking shift!" somebody reinforced, he though Verone. More rustling amongst the trees, unrelated to the firefight. The chaotic maelstrom in the area was attracting predators. A great many-legged serpent twisted from the bushes, six ivory fangs in serried rows in its long mouth. Its scaled hide was black and yellow in jagged stripes. Bulging venom sacks hung beneath its jawbone. It must have been, if it was a centimetre, ten metres long, and a foot and a half wide, sliding from the primordial jungle like a creature of myth.

Verone saw it first, and wide-eyed, aimed his lasgun. He fired, the round missing and slapping into the matted jungle floor, spraying singed decaying leaf-matter into the air. This served only to piss the snake off, and it went for him, lightning fast, teeth bared.

Trajk intercepted as Verone recoiled. He had fixed his gleaming bayonet, ten inches long and polished to a mirror-sheen, to the lug beneath his rifle's barrel. The blade speared into the scaled flesh of the great snake's throat as it reared back. It convulsed and gushed black blood for several seconds, while Trajk screamed wordlessly at it, and then, arms straight, he pulled the trigger, sending, exploding its speared head and neck with a lasround, dark gore and brain matter splashing everything nearby, particularly Trajk.

The body whipped for several seconds, uncontrollably, throwing Trajk to the ground, covered in spurting gore. Verone grinned at him as the boy scrambled to his feet.

"Nice one Trajk, we'll make a soldier out of you yet!"

Then something roared in the jungle, terrifying and primal. Corvul looked, and saw something shadowed and looming, roaring and assaulting something he couldn't see. He couldn't make out what the creature was, even its shape, but he knew it must be pretty gakking terrifying. He grinned – the direction it was in, it could only be attacking the guerrillas. Perhaps they weren't so good with the jungle as they liked to think.

"Move it!" he roared.

Boorn left the stream behind, the footfalls of his fire team kicking up clods of wet earth as they ran. The occasional shot still whickered to them through the surrounding trees, but there was some jungle beast running rampage in the trees, and so the pursuit became less focussed. Unintentionally the great predator had saved their lives.

They hurried past the twitching corpse of a great snake, its hundreds of tiny legs shuddering. Black blood still pulsed gently from the stump of its severed neck. Short fat leeches dropped down from the tree branches above where they clustered, to land wetly in the spreading pool, sucking and swelling. Disgusting.

The five troopers rushed along, darting through the trees, half-crouched. He almost began to believe that they were clear when a lasround whipped from the trees and found a mark. Berall fell without a sound, dropped onto his face, the hole in his back smoking.

"Berall! Shit!" shouted Talino and dropped to a knee next to him. Dullem rushed towards the location of the shooter, spraying lasfire on full-auto into the trees. Unseen, the shooter retreated back into the jungle. Silence descended upon their position, the only noise coming from, Valdak and Talino as they examined Berall.

Suddenly Berall groaned in pain, and a great whoosh of air resounded as they all loosed a held breath at once.

"Gak it, Berall, speak up sooner next time." Luso spoke, his gravelly voice laden with barely-concealed relief. He crouch-walked over to them, and began to haul the wounded soldier upright, hooking the arm furthest from the wound over his shoulder and heaving the younger soldier upright. He grunted in pain as the white-hot wound twisted.

"I'll get ahead and try to make contact with A." Valdak said to nobody in particular, and crept off into the trees.

Another las-shot, at that moment, whipped overhead. The men got down low, and soon they were a triangle around Luso and Berall, each point a lasgun. The trees were a blur of colour, but nothing seemed to be moving. If Boorn had to guess, the problem was three or four independently moving designated marksmen, moving nice and stealthy, and hounding them. They knew the wounded man would slow them down, and now they could prey on them at their leisure. There were two things you could do in a situation like this. You could get shot repeatedly, or you could get the hell out of there. Option two had always been Boorn's favourite.

Another shot, this time with a plainly visible muzzle flare, to the south. Boorn shot twice, but hit nothing except the jungle.

Cursing, he gestured wordlessly for Luso to start moving Berall. They would rearguard as best they could, he decided silently, his men getting the idea quickly. The struggling form, a meld of Luso and Berall, manoeuvred past them and began to hobble with great speed in A's direction. The triangle began to retreat with them, slowly but surely, sporadic fire flickering through the humid air.

After a while, even this died, and the jungle took over again – the sound of the birds, the buzzing of the insects, the rustling of the undergrowth, as though nothing had happened at all. Boorn and his team picked up the pace, himself and Talino watching the rear, Dullem staying close to Luso and Berall.

The squad reunited another half-click to the north, atop a ridge of grimy grey stone, long grass and moss overhanging the top of the cliff. The ground had risen steeply and the jungle grew sparser and sparser the further up they went. There was a light breeze up here, welcome in the oppressive heat. The sun was bright, the sky clear, clusters of birds black spots against it. Something far bigger, a flat delta of scales and feathers with a long, lithe tail, like a giant stingray, winging across the sky.

From this high vantage point they could look back across the canopy of the jungle, watching groups of the strange simians Corvul had seen before leap and swing through the treetops, gathering fruit and other such nourishment and returning it to a central location, complex, almost like a tree house of bark and twigs, resting regally atop one of the taller trees. Behind them, where the cliff dropped away, was more jungle, the canopy denser, the space beneath darker, somehow more foreboding. Close to the base of the cliff, perhaps two hundred feet below, a freakishly large plant with a bulbous bud atop a long stalk climbed it, broad, flat leaves with razor-edges hanging lazily from the stalk that was like a tree-trunk, about halfway up. Its roots, thick and dark brown, writhed and undulated independently, absorbing moisture from whatever they could, leeching trees along the edge of the jungle, turning them into nothing but crooked, blackened, dead husks of petrified wood.

The great mass of life covered the landscape as far as the eye could see. It was all very pretty, in a way, but Corvul had, by now, had more than enough of it.

They gathered along the cliff edge, in amongst tufts of flowers and anthill-like mounds of earth as tall as your waist. They crawled with insects with odd numbers of legs making them list slightly to one side in a fashion that would have been amusing under other circumstances. They were fiery red, with a brace of questing antenna atop each of their heads. They were not interested in the gathering squad of soldiers, even the injured one, which Corvul was relieved about – he had met so many things on this world that would eat you or poison you or choke you that it was nice to meet with something ambivalent, indifferent to their presence. They sat and waited, their rifles nearby, their eyes scanning the treeline for pursuing soldiers. Luso struggled up ahead of team B, and laid down the shot Berall, who still clutched his rifle. Corvul dropped next to him.

"Hurt much soldier?" he asked quietly.

"Like a gakking bastard Sarge." Though pained, his tone was determined. His round face contorted with agony beneath his helmet.

"You tough?" Corvul continued.

"You're god damned right." The soldier answered.

"Good man. We'll get you out of here soon. East about four clicks, and we're home, so stay with us."

The soldier nodded, and Corvul patted his shoulder. He moved over to Boorn.

"Rough time getting here?" he asked, sitting heavily next to him. The Melean looked around at him. His narrow face looked longer than usual.

"Yeah, the traffic was hell." He took a drag on another Iho-stick. He offered the pack to Corvul, who politely waved them away. He chuckled at the Corporal's reply, looked down at the grass beneath him. The mosquitoes weren't so bad up here, and the air smelled cleaner. He wiped sweat from his eyes, allowed the breath of the wind to cool his face. Boorn spoke before he could continue.

"How'd Trajk hold up under fire?" he asked, his eyes doing much of the talking. Corvul nodded slowly. He looked over to where Trajk sat. He was on his haunches, staring blankly at the trees, his rifle forgotten beside him. He looked very pale – paler than usual, that is. His breathing was shallow and rapid.

"A little shaky at first, like everybody is. But he fired when he was told to fire and he just about saved Verone's life from a big gakking snake with his bayonet." At this, Boorn nodded appreciatively. "So yeah, pretty good." He finished lamely, watching Verone. He moved over to Trajk, sat down next to him, and took a silver hip flask from his pocket. He unscrewed the cap and offered it to Trajk, who looked at it for a moment. He took it, and knocked back a slug of whatever liquor was within. He shuddered, and Verone chuckled, and accepted the flask back. He took a long swig of the liquor too, then muttered a few words under his breath to Trajk, who nodded and half-smiled at him. Verone replaced the flask in his pocket, and moved back over to Talino, Dullem, and Dax. Mairas sat to one side, cleaning her longlas, clearing it of the jungle debris. She worked carefully and methodically, her characteristic smile gone as she disassembled and reassembled it like a professional – cold and precise, like a machine.

Corvul lapsed into silence. He had a wounded man now, who required medical attention – and no way to get him there fast. Four clicks through guerrilla territory was a lot with a wounded trooper. Plus, he was bound to get some freaky infection. They qualified at least for air evacuation. Each firebase had a Valkyrie Airborne Assault Carrier on station, in their case Aquila Four-Oh-One. Apart from a serious wedge of firepower, it carried ten passengers – perfect for a rescue run. He looked to Dullem, a slight soldier with an augmetic hand and dangerous eyes, wearing a helmet a little too big for him that was vaguely comical. Linked up to his helmet was the squad's vox-caster, the box of it hanging on his back like a pack. Metal antennae protruded over his head, and from the earpiece and microphone built into his helmet.

"Dullem? Call up Firebase Four, and get 'em to scramble Aquila Four-Oh-One. We need a fast extraction." The middle-aged soldier did as instructed, repeating the message into the vox-caster, relaying the instructions. Mairas, Corvul noticed, had moved. She was scanning the treeline through her personally calibrated scope. She suddenly did a double-take on a stretch of the treeline.

"Oh for gak's sake. I think they're coming back. Extreme range right now, but they're moving pretty fast." She looked around at Corvul, and he realised there wasn't even a ghost of a joke on her angular, pretty face. He sighed. _Here we go again_. Worse, the only cover was the anthills dotted around the steep gradient of the slope. Otherwise it was just an expanse of grass.

"We're going to have to use these friggin' insect hills as cover. Get in, and stay alive." He briefed them quickly as Mairas kept watch on the approaching figures, her rifle steadily declining as the barrel tracked them. Dullem interrupted.

"Two minutes, they're gunning it up now." He said, terminating the connection.

"Are you gakking kidding, Sarge? We don't know what these things are!" said Talino loudly and belligerently. Corvul turned to him with barely suppressed anger.

"Are you volunteering to dig a prepared emplacement in under ten seconds, Trooper? Quit your bitching." He snapped, and the Trooper, suitably admonished, grabbed his rifle.

The nine combat-ready troopers distributed themselves in a rough line, each a few metres apart, their rifles pointing downrange. They still couldn't be seen without assistance from this distance, the dense jungle providing excellent concealment. They waited with baited breath. Berall lay alone behind the line, shielded by his comrades.

"They're closing." called Mairas calmly.

"We know, Mai, you've told us. You gonna tell us when they get here too?" answered Dullem. There was a smattering of laughter.

"Estimating…a couple of dozen, Sarge. Would you like me to…delay them?" she asked meaningfully.

"Go for it."

The longlas cracked, and there was a distant scream, echoing around them.

"Yeah, they're moving a little more cautiously now. Ten seconds or so, and they'll break cover, and incidentally be in firing range for your little pea-shooters." The barbed comment was directed at the lasguns the rest of the squad used – as a sniper, she had a healthy sense of disdain for the smaller, less powerful weapons the regulars used.

"Good to know." Said Trajk quietly.

At the bottom of the hill, figures clad in olive-drab camo were melting from the treeline, decently-equipped and fairly numerous. They came on in several staggered ranks, spaces in between them. The tension hung palpably over the squad as they waited for Corvul to speak. He gave the order.

"Fire at will!" he called.

"What the gak has Will ever done to you?" shouted Boorn. More chuckling.

Lasrifle fire rippled from the Imperial troops. Mercifully, the insects withdrew inside the hills as the weaponsfire roared into life, crawling over the limbs of the Imperial soldiers to get to safety. Sporadically, advancing enemies would fire back, bursts of lasfire and hard-rounds tearing into the anthills and kicking up showers of packed dirt. Mairas's longlas cracked louder than the smaller weapons. One of the approaching figures was shot through the torso. His upper body stopped dead, but his legs kept going, kicking out in front of him. He slammed into the ground and slid back towards the treeline. Another buckled as a lasround hit him square in the gut, and he collapsed onto his face. The others kept moving, snapping off bursts up the slope. They were well-drilled and disciplined by the looks of things, and they showed no sign of fear.

About another six or eight were out on the slope, and more were crouched in the treeline, firing in between them and over their heads.

"Sarge!" called Dullem and pointed a finger at the sky. Corvul, who was two anthills down from him, between Dax and Talino, peered up. The flat dark-green shape of the Valkyrie A.A.C soaring in at great speed. It was not moving straight for them. It nosed down, and zoomed towards the treeline. Rockets on thick cloudy-white vapour trails streaked from the wing-mounted rocket pods, hammering into the treeline along with sustained bursts from the multilaser that either incinerated guerrillas, or carved them up into bloody chunks of meet. The troops in front of the treeline were thrown to the floor, and they had nowhere to go as the collective rifles of the Imperial squad ripped into their confused and concussed forms. Mairas was still staring through her rifle scope.

"They're retreating. Well, that could have been worse."

There was a moment of relief. They all watched the Valkyrie turn, their heads turning with it, as it came back, auguring in, the sound of the engines growing louder as it slowed to a hover, side on to the cliff edge, the void hanging below it. Its side-doors were open, and two men were on the heavy bolters in the doors, Navy personnel. They smiled and waved – behaviour that said they hadn't been groundside long.

They muscled the wounded Berall on first, followed by Talino and Luso who sat either side of him on the cold metal floor of the craft's hold. Then went Dax and Verone, Trajk following. Mairas and Dullem jumped on, followed by Boorn. Corvul, in the leader-style he had been taught when made a noncom, was last aboard the evac bird.

Then they were pulling away from the hostile landscape and twisting to the east, heading low and fast back to Firebase Four and relative safety.

In the trees, Voracor watched the Valkyrie go through the flames that now burned hotly along the treeline. Deep muddy craters sank into the earth, and trees had been burnt and shattered, the craters strewn with the charred and chopped-up bodies of his men, the ground slick with gore. His beetle-black eyes tracked it as it disappeared off to the east. The Imperials were deeper, and better prepared, than They had originally believed. The viper, its scaled body changing colours with the tree bark that it was coiled around, struck, fangs of steel gleaming. He caught it, one handed, without looking. The bare flesh of the hand was covered with knots of white flesh, rough and gristly, ritual scars. Thick black tattoos coiled the length of his forearm, revealed by his fatigues. Every inch of his flesh was the same way. His teeth were filed to points, and his cheeks were pierced with heavy steel hooks that dragged and distorted the flesh, and turned it red-raw. He relished the pain. He wore a heavy talisman around his neck, the eight-pointed star that was also cut into the flesh of his torso. His bare head glistened with sweat. He turned his head to the snake. It hissed at him, the flat v of its head contorted in rage. He hissed back and then laughed, the sound high and breathy.

He dropped the venomous creature to the ground and crushed its head beneath his boot.


End file.
